“Well—it’s an awful thing for a father to say to a daughter—but I’ll give way. Think of that! What a humiliating confession for me to make!—a man who has refused to budge an inch before the united demands of some hundreds of men, backed by the pathetic entreaties of my own employers. If that isn’t a victory for a small girl, what is?”
“Oh, no!” cried Edna, her eyes quickly filling. “I’ll give way—I’ll give way—even if it breaks my heart!” Her father stopped in his walk, and grasped her by the shoulders. The girl’s head drooped, and she put one hand over her eyes.
“Ah, Edna, Edna, there’s something at the back of all this; I won’t ask you what it is, my pet, but some day you’ll tell me, perhaps.” He drew her to his breast, and, pushing aside her hat, caressed her fair hair lovingly. “If your mother were alive, dearest, we—well, there is little use of either grieving or wishing. We must make the best of things as they are. But don’t bother about the stubborn wills, Edna; we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You see, we are both competing to see who shall give way first, and there’s nothing very stubborn about that. Now, my girl, I’ve disarranged that pretty hat, and a stranger who didn’t know might think you had been crying. This will never do. Let us talk sensibly, for I imagine that before long I’ll have all the fighting I need to keep me in form, without having a contest with my only daughter.”
“What do you mean, father?”
“Oh, there’s the usual ferment among the men. They are seething and foaming and vapouring, and I feel it in my bones that we will have another strike before long.”
“Led by Mr. Marsten?”
“By him, of course. But I’ll beat him! I’ll crumple him up so that he will wonder why he ever started the fight. It’s a pity to see him waste his energy and his brains in a hopeless struggle. He’s clever and indefatigable, but a visionary and an enthusiast, and when he stops dreaming of impossibilities he will be a most valuable man.”
“What impossibilities, father?” asked the girl, almost in a whisper, gazing at the ground.
“The impossibility of men hanging together on any one subject for more than a week. The impossibility of warding off treachery within the ranks. The impossibility of keeping down the jealousy which they always feel towards a man who is their evident superior in education and ability. However he got them, Marsten has the manner and instincts of a gentleman. The men are not going to stand that sort of thing, you know, and they will fail him when it comes to a pinch.”
“If you think so well of him, why don’t you offer him a good position in the works, and let him turn his ability towards helping you?”